“Linda,” he said calmly. “Did you open everything?”
There was a long silence.
Then my mother asked a question that made the room feel suddenly cold.
“Where did you get that photograph?”
“What photograph?” I demanded.
Neither of them answered.
“Mom, what photograph?”
I heard the faint sound of paper rustling on the other end.
Then she whispered, “You weren’t supposed to keep that check.”
I turned toward Ethan.
“What check?”
He closed his eyes briefly, as if he had rehearsed this moment a thousand times and still wasn’t prepared for it.
“Five years ago,” he said, “your mother offered me $20,000 to leave you.”
For several seconds, I couldn’t understand the words.
I heard them, but they seemed to belong to another conversation, another family, another life.
“What?”
“Before our wedding, Linda asked me to meet her privately.”
My mother interrupted.
“I was trying to protect my daughter!”
“From what?” I shouted.
